Alexa groups are not working

[Dielee]

When sending an command to a single echo this works,
but sending an command to a alexa group of devices this won't work.

This problem concerns tunein and spotify.
Not sure if other services are affected.

Call service code:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.uberall",
  "media_content_id": "Release Radar",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
} 

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.uberall",
  "media_content_id": "eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
} 

[alandtse]

Can you try this workaround and let me know if that works? In other words, entity_id should be changed to a single echo and media_content_id should be edited to include the name of your group.

[Dielee]

Tryed this three versions. All not working for me:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "media_player.uberall.eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "media_player.uberall eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "media_player.uberall",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

EDIT:
This WORKS !

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

[Dielee]

This above works for tunein.
Unfortunately not working with spotify.

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall release radar",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

[alandtse]

And to verify, if you say "uberall release radar" for Spotify to your Alexa it works, right?

I did see one other post saying you could explicitly mention the group and say play x in the "Everywhere" group. Does German have a similar use of prepositions and if so, does that help?

Based off the research I did on this, it doesn't look like it's fully supported and it's only reliant on this workaround for now. If so, we may not be able to implement this.

[alandtse]

Can you also try the equivalent in English? I just realized that we have a hardcoded locale of English in the API for searches which may be confusing it. It may not be the cause since you are able to get German searching to work.

[Dielee]

And to verify, if you say "uberall release radar" for Spotify to your Alexa it works, right?

NOT working for Spotify. Only tunein.

I did see one other post saying you could explicitly mention the group and say play x in the "Everywhere" group. Does German have a similar use of prepositions and if so, does that help?

Yes, i'm using this daily with my voice. But not sure how to use this with the call service component in HA.

Also only a few tunein radios working.
As spotify, this is also not working:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall bcc one",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

Tried spotify in english, not working.

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall Discover Weekly",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

Those are not working, too:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "spiele release radar uberall",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}
{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "play Discover Weekly uberall",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

[alandtse]

Let me see if my English examples explain it. You shouldn't need to say "Play" as it's inherent in the command.

I don't have Spotify so I can't test this, but this is what I think would work based on the links I shared. If I was to say this in English to my Alexa device, it would be:
"Alexa, play Discover weekly everywhere"

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover Weekly everywhere",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

or "Alexa, play Discover weekly in the everywhere group"

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover Weekly in the everywhere group",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

Please try both examples in German and English both speaking and using the service and let me know which combination works and doesn't work.

[Dielee]

Tested a lot of versions but none works for me...

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Release Radar uberall",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover weekly uberall",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover Weekly everywhere",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover Weekly in the everywhere group",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Discover Weekly in der uberall gruppe",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "Release Radar in der uberall gruppe",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

[alandtse]

Ok. You said earlier you can't verbally say the play everywhere to Spotify, right? My googling shows that feature was enabled in Germany last year so I suspect the issues you're seeing may be linked to the fact the verbal command doesn't work. I saw one post saying they had to delete and recreate the groups for it to start working.

Can you try that please?

Assuming that doesn't fix it, we may be out of options as normally we can only replicate what the app can do, and I don't see an option in the routines to force it to play everywhere.

[Dielee]

You said earlier you can't verbally say the play everywhere to Spotify, right?

Thats wrong. I can verbally say play everywhere and this works every day.

My echos are only a few months old, so my group is also from late 2018.

EDIT:
In my opinion alexa reads the command wrong.

If I'm using this:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall Release Radar",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

Alexa says: "Ich kann keine Playliste mit dem Namen uberall Release Radar finden".
This also happens when using:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall bcc one",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

("Ich kann keinen Radiosender mit dem Namen uberall bbc one finden")

But when using this:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

Alexa plays 1Live on uberall group.

[alandtse]

Sorry, I misunderstood you earlier.

Hmm. Thanks for your patience and help debugging. If it's misunderstanding the command, I think the last thing we can check is the forced locale issue. In the Alexa app, can you try creating a routine to play music where the search string is exactly what you have for media_content_id in your first two examples?

I will probably fix the component so that it intelligently selects the locale instead of forcing EN-US, but by using the routine builder in the app you'll immediately be able to test this hypothesis as last I checked it sets the correct locale. As a FYI, this Wiki page explains how to read the routine builder output.

[Dielee]

GOT IT WORKING !
The test inside the alexa app was very helpful.

So, sometimes the API uses "u" and sometimes it uses "ü".
In german those are called "Umlaute" (ü,ä,ö) .. shity german.

My group is called "Überall". HA makes "uberall" from "Überall".
I don't now why, but for 1Live ONLY working this:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "uberall eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

For BBC1 and Spotify is working ONLY this:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "überall Release Radar",
  "media_content_type": "SPOTIFY"
}

If i'm using "ü" for 1Live:

{
  "entity_id": "media_player.wohnzimmer",
  "media_content_id": "überall eins live",
  "media_content_type": "TUNEIN"
}

it won't work.

[alandtse]

Glad you got it working. So you're saying in the HA API, you're able to get it to work by switching between a u and umlaut.

Just to see if I need to fix anything here, did you happen to see if the routines consistently used the right locale setting? For example, did the locale setting change to DE for SPOTIFY and EN for TUNEIN?

If that didn't happen, I suspect it may be related to how each service processes umlauts.

[Dielee]

Tested it and the locale setting seems to be de-de all the time.

[alandtse]

Ok, but even with de-DE you're getting the inconsistent umlaut behavior in TUNEIN and SPOTIFY right?

[Dielee]

Yes, TUNEIN using sometimes 'ü' and sometimes 'u'. Spotify seems to using all the time 'ü'.

[alandtse]

Closing out as it appears to be an Amazon issue with processing umlauts. Will spawn a new issue to cover the proper locale.